Leuven, Belgium - April 25, 2008 -- During today's General Assembly, the IMEC Board confirmed that 2007 was a successful year with excellent achievements, during which IMEC maintained its position as a world-leading nanoelectronics research institute. The board also looks confidently to 2008 and beyond.

The skills, devotion and hard work of the IMEC researchers led to many important results, evidenced by about 1,600 publications in prestigious journals and conference contributions, often in collaboration with universities in Flanders and abroad. The number of invited papers and lectures increased to 184, 32% more than in 2006. And in 2007, 106 patents were submitted. IMEC's results were achieved by 1,572 people, a 5.5 percent increase compared to 2006. Of these, 35 percent were guest researchers and residents from the academic and industrial world.

2007 was also an excellent year from a financial viewpoint. IMEC's total revenue (P&L) amounted to 244.5 million euro, of which 39.1 million euro were granted by the Flanders Government. In 2007, IMEC cooperated with many of the major semiconductor companies, giving it a large visibility and a good view on the future research needs.

"In 2007, we extended our programs to address the needs of all semiconductor players-from IDMs and foundries to fablite and fabless companies," said Gilbert Declerck, President and CEO of IMEC. "Following the growing importance of memory technology, we have brought our logic and memory research on equal footing. Among the new partners we welcomed in 2007, two important additional memory players-Hynix and Elpida-joined our core (sub-)32nm program. For scaling-driven research, the focus is now on the sub-32nm technology. We are tackling new research challenges, such as technology-aware design and 3D design and architectures."

Commenting on IMEC's other research lines, Gilbert Declerck said, "To maximize our efforts, we have successfully merged all our scientific knowhow into one unit. This will ensure the leverage and knowledge-sharing that is needed to be successful in this research, where we intend to combine ever more heterogeneous functionality on ever smaller footprints in ever more complex applications. We also focused our research by giving a stronger weight to our main application-oriented strategic drivers: nomadic embedded systems, wireless autonomous transducer systems, biomedical electronics, photovoltaics, and GaN power electronics."

About IMEC

IMEC is a world-leading independent research center in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology. Its research focuses on the next generations of chips and systems, and on the enabling technologies for ambient intelligence. IMEC's research bridges the gap between fundamental research at universities and technology development in industry. Its unique balance of processing and system know-how, intellectual property portfolio, state-of-the-art infrastructure and its strong network of companies, universities and research institutes worldwide position IMEC as a key partner for shaping technologies for future systems.

IMEC vzw is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, has a sister company in the Netherlands, IMEC-NL, concentrating on wireless autonomous transducer solutions, and has representatives in the US, China, Japan and Taiwan. Its staff of more than 1600 people includes more than 500 industrial residents and guest researchers. In 2007, its revenue (P&L) amounted to EUR 244.5 million. Further information on IMEC can be found at
www.imec.be.